“You know how to shop,” he said as they left the store.
“I enjoy it.”
“Do they get in front of you?” he asked. “In the line?” It did not seem likely.
“They try. But you can tell before they do it. They get a certain kind of look.”
At the Safeway she bought eggs and coffee.
“Now,” she said, “I want to go to the drugstore. Then we can go home and I’ll fix lunch.”
With a prescription in her hand she waited by the magazines and chewing gum and display of razor blades. This was her element. The routine of shopping. The measuring, the judgment, the comparing of prices, one store with another. The cautious proceeding from one store to the next.
On the trip back to the apartment the shopping cart was weighed down with packages.
“Where’d you get it?” he said, meaning the cart. “Art made it.”
In the front room of the apartment she unloaded the packages one by one onto the heavy oak table; she was careful with each, making sure that the eggs and tomatoes were undamaged. She had bought a package of berries, and now she carried them to the kitchen to wash them. Filling a pan with water, she lit the burner under it and put in two of the eggs. She took out a large bowl and began fixing the tomatoes and lettuce and green onions for the salad. Seated at the kitchen table, with the bowl in her lap, she cut bits of celery and hardboiled egg.
“There’s nothing they can do about your sterility?” she asked.
“No.”
“It won’t change?”
“It won’t go away,” he said.
Rachael said, “Do you think about it?”
“Sometimes. When I have nothing else to do.”
“It must make a man feel awful. What do they do, do they find out by—I guess they can’t use a rabbit.”
“They make counts on a slide. Number of sperm per cubic centimeter. There has to be sixty million.”
“Were there?”
“Yes,” he said, “but too many, of them were irregular. So they weren’t fertile.”
“But there were some that were okay, weren’t there?”
“If,” he said, “I had intercourse day and night, over a period of years, I might conceivably impregnate some woman. Pat and I went to find out why we hadn’t had any success, and that was the reason; it was my, fault.”
“Sixty million sounds like a lot.”
“But statistically,” he said, “there just isn’t enough of a chance.”
With the salad she fixed cheese sandwiches. “I made the bread,” she told him.
The bread was excellent.
“Do you like the salad?” she said.
“Fine.” He ate as much as he could.
Across from him she watched; she kept her eyes on him.
“Do you think she went after Art because she knew he had had a child?” she said.
“Maybe. That’s part of it.”
“It was to make up for you?” She did not seem embarrassed.
“I think she didn’t know what to do,” he said. “She wanted to do something, and she felt she couldn’t have anything to do with me. And then she ran into Art.”
Rachael said, “Don’t you see how no good she is?”
“Let me decide that,” he said.
She nodded.
“It’s up to me,” he said.
“Then decide.” Her eyes ignited; she gazed at him menacingly. “She’s no good. She isn’t; why do you pretend she is? I don’t see how somebody like you can get mixed up with her.”
“You have no charity,” he said.
“What’s that? What do you mean?” She was suspicious.
He said, “You’re too much of a Puritan, Rachael. You’re too righteous.”
“Are you marrying her to get away from me?”
“No,” he said.
“Why then?”
“Because I love her.”
“You don’t feel she’s sort of public property by now?”
“No,” he said.
“Do you know what I meant by the note I gave you?”
“Yes,” he said, “I know. That’s why I followed after you.”
“How do you feel about it?” He had no answer for that.
Rachael said, “I think you ought to forget about her and marry me. Will you? I’d make you a good wife; don’t you think I would? Don’t you think I’d do everything in the world to make you happy?”
In his mouth the words fell into bits. “I can’t say yes,” he said finally.
“What, then? You mean you won’t?”
He knew that this was the last time she was going to ask. And, he thought, when he said no to her this time, it was finished. How much of a temptation it was; how close he was to saying yes. The hell with everything else, he thought. Surely this was worth more than all the rest of it.
“Wait,” Rachael said. She put her hands up over her ears. “Don’t say anything to me right now. Walk with me to this store . . . I want to look at some maternity clothes.”
She collected the dishes and put them in the sink. Then, with her brown coat trailing, she went out of the apartment. He followed along, willing to go with her, wanting to be with her as long as he could. They both felt the same way; they loitered and moved reluctantly past the stores, across the streets. They looked at the window displays and people. Rachael entered stores and talked to the clerks; she poked into everything. By the time they reached the clothing store, the time was three o’clock.
On the trip back, she said, “Let’s stop and have a Coke.” Ahead of them was a hot dog counter; a radio played jump tunes.
With her Coke she leaned against the side of the stand, her coat over her arm, her package of clothes by her feet. She did not say anything to him; she appeared to be mulling over the things he had said.
“Are you sorry for her?” she said. “Is that it?”
“No,” he said.
“Then I don’t understand.”
He said, “How do you feel when somebody is helpless? Do you take advantage of them?” With her straw between her lips, she studied him; she was listening and she said nothing. “Sonic people do,” he said. “Most people do.”
“It’s their own fault if they’re weak,” she said.
“Christ,” he said.
“If they’re weak, then they disappear. Isn’t that evolution? Isn’t that the survival of the fit or something?”
“Sure it is,” he said futilely.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing.”
“But you don’t feel that way,” she said.
“I don’t feel that way when I love somebody; if they’re helpless and need help, I want to help them. You feel the same way. You said so.”
“No,” she said. “Did I?”
“You said I should want to take care of her.”
“But,” Rachael said, “she doesn’t deserve it.”
“Let it go,” he said.
“Can’t you tell me?”
“No,” he said, “I guess not.”
“Do you love her because she is weak; is that it? You can’t have children, so you want somebody you can take care of.”
“That’s not it,” he said.
“You can—look out for her.” Finishing her Coke, she put the empty cup down on the ledge of the window; she picked up her package and started off.
“That’s some of it,” he said. “The rest of it is that she and I understand each other in a way I can’t explain. You’re trying to make this into a rational thing, and it isn’t. I don’t love her because she’s helpless, any more than I might love you because you aren’t helpless. I love her first, before anything else, and if she’s helpless I want to take care of her. If I were helpless, you would want to take care of me, wouldn’t you? You’d be glad. It would make you happy.”